Image via Getty/Clive Brunskill
Last year, the world witnessed the first-ever postponement of an Olympic Games. While it may not have been much more than a blip on the radar for most people, it was extremely consequential for the athletes who train their entire lives for the opportunity to represent their home nations at an Olympics, marking the beginning of a new one-of-a-kind journey to stay in shape and qualify for a delayed Games.
Now, despite a long list of concerns, the Games are back, with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics officially opening on Friday, July 23 and continuing through Sunday, August 8.
For Team Canada, the 371 Olympic athletes competing in Tokyo represents the largest contingent of Canadians at an Olympic Games since Los Angeles 1984, with Canada’s medal hopes resting largely on the shoulders of women, who outnumber men 225-146. Of the 371 Canadian athletes—who range in age from 14-year-old Summer McIntosh to 56-year-old Mario Deslauriers—there are 226 Olympic rookies and 40 Olympic medalists.
Despite all of the pandemic-related challenges, Canadian athletes persevered, showing an abundance of focus and resiliency on their journey to qualify for Tokyo. From star sprinter Andre De Grasse and the most versatile Athletics team in Canadian history, to Penny Oleksiak and her cohort of female swimmers, to team sports new and established, Complex has you covered on every Canadian you need to know at the 2020 Summer Games.
Rookies
Summer McIntosh
At just 14 years of age, Summer McIntosh is the youngest Canadian athlete to compete in Tokyo. The Toronto native is the daughter of Olympian swimmer Jill Horstead and a swimming phenom in her own right, having broken more than 50 Canadian age group records in her young career.
McIntosh secured her spot on the 2020 Olympic Team by winning the 200 metre freestyle at the Canadian Olympic Trials in June, beating Rio 2016 superstar Penny Oleksiak to the wall. A day later, McIntosh won the 800 metre freestyle to qualify for her second event at Tokyo.
“I think she’s one of the most resilient swimmers I’ve ever met,” says Oleksiak, who became the youngest Canadian to win gold and the first ever to win four medals at a Summer Olympics in Rio. “I don’t know what it is but she is a stone-cold killer. That girl doesn’t care about anything, she just wants to train, get in the water and swim fast… I admire that about her. It pushes me in training and I want to be more like her.”
The Canadian women will be well-represented in the pool, with McIntosh and Oleksiak joined by medal-hopefuls such as Kylie Masse, Taylor Ruck, and Maggie Mac Neil. The swimming team has lofty goals for Tokyo, as they will try to at least match the six medals they picked up in Rio 2016.
Men’s Rugby
Rugby sevens made its Olympic debut in Rio 2016, with Canada’s women’s team winning bronze in the inaugural competition and entering the 2020 Olympics ranked 3rd in the world. However, the Canadian men failed to qualify in 2016, so this marks the first time that both the men’s and women’s teams will be competing.
The Canadian men qualified for the Olympics back in July 2019, going undefeated at the Rugby Americas North Sevens tournament in the Cayman Islands in a dominant showing. Canada dispatched Bermuda (twice), Barbados, Mexico, Guyana and Jamaica by a combined score of 293-15. They enter the tournament ranked No. 8 in the world, but will have stiff competition in their first day of competition on July 26, opening against Rio 2016 runner-up Britain before facing the defending Olympic champion Fiji later in the day.
Rugby sevens is sure to once again be one of the most exciting team sports at the Games, with the best seven-a-side nations competing in a back-and-forth test of speed, strength, and skill. The Canadian men will have their work cut out for them, but anything can happen in Rugby sevens and, led by captain Nathan Hirayama, they will be hard to take down.
Daniel Gaysinsky
Speaking of new sports, karate is making its Olympic debut in Tokyo due to Japan being the birthplace of the sport and its popularity in the host nation. The other new sports are surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing, baseball, and softball.
Daniel Gaysinsky, from Vaughn, Ontario, is Canada’s first and only Olympic karate competitor, competing in the +75kg kumite event, which is a form of sparring.
Gayinsky has had a tough road to Tokyo. After tearing the meniscus and ACL in his knee just a week before he was supposed to compete in the 2015 Pan Am Games, he underwent three surgeries and wasn’t able to compete again until 2017, when he won gold at the Pan American Championships.
Then, at the Karate Olympic Qualification Tournament in Paris in June 2021, needing a win against Tyron-Darnell Lardy of the Netherlands to qualify, Gayinsky was given a penalty with just three seconds remaining in the match. He protested the penalty successfully, regaining advantage and replaying the final three seconds of the match, which ended in the Canadian’s favour to make his Olympic dreams a reality.
Skylar Park
At just 22, Skylar Park will be the only Canadian in the taekwondo competition at the Tokyo Games. The Winnipeg native has certaintly earned the spot—she’s been training for this moment all her life, quite literally. She was born into a family of 16 black belts, getting hers when she was just seven.
She’s wasted no time making a name for herself in her young career. She broke out with a gold medal win at the 2016 World Junior Championships, and has impressed with several other medal-winning performances over the last few years. Last month, she claimed gold in the women’s 57-kilogram division at the Pan Am Championships in Mexico. She’s headed to Tokyo ranked third in the world, and has every intention of bringing Canada its first Olympic gold medal ever in taekwondo.
“The goal for me has always been a gold medal,” Park told Complex in June. “I remember telling my dad, even when I was little, it was never that I wanted to go to the Olympics—it was that I wanted to win a gold medal for Canada. And for me, that’s still the goal. I really feel like I have the potential to do that.”
Underdogs
Felix Auger-Aliassime
Felix Auger-Aliassime, the 20-year-old tennis phenom from Montreal, will compete on the Olympic stage for the first time in Tokyo.
Auger-Aliassime became the youngest player to be ranked the ATP top-25 in 20 years, currently ranked 15th in the world. And while he is considered an underdog at that ranking—especially with No. 1 ranked Novak Jokovic from Serbia joining the competition—Auger-Aliassime is in fantastic form heading into the Olympics. He is coming off a breakout performance at Wimbledon in early July, where he reached his first Grand Slam quarter-final before falling to eventual runner-up Matteo Berrettini of Italy. But he is yet to win a singles title at a major event. Is it possible that the Olympics could be his first?
“I told myself it would be incredible to walk one day in the opening ceremony among that handful of Canadian athletes that go to the Olympic Games,” Auger-Aliassime says. “It’s really a childhood dream and to come true. It’s awesome.”
Women’s Basketball
Canada is bringing arguably its most talented women’s basketball team ever to the Olympics, with three WNBA players and a core group that includes six players returning from the team’s 2016 Olympic squad, which placed 7th. Ranked an all-time high No. 4 in the world, the Canadians have a great mix of experience and youth, giving them a real shot at medaling at the 2020 Games.
Led by WNBA stars Kia Nurse, Bridget Carleton, and Natalie Achonwa, the Canadians are a team with tons of speed, athleticism, and versatility—one that will likely switch a lot defensively and play fast in transition. The other reason to be excited for Team Canada is the youth, with three collegiate players in Shaina Pellington, Aaliyah Edwards, and Laeticia Amihere making the roster after all having impressive tournaments at the 2021 AmeriCup. Amihere, in particular, had a coming out party of sorts at the tournament, leading the team in scoring (13.0), rebounding (7.7) and field-goal percentage (50.0). At just 20 years old, she could be the future of the Canadian program.
While the Canadian team is legit, they will be considered underdogs until someone knocks the historically dominant Team USA off the pedestal, who enter the Games ranked No. 1 in the world after winning gold at the past six Olympic Games and eight of the previous nine.
Women’s Gymnastics
In the history of Canadians at the Olympics, only one athlete has ever won a gold medal in two consecutive Games in the same event: trampolinist Rosie MacLennan. In Tokyo, a 32-year-old MacLennan will have a chance to capture her unprecedented third consecutive gold in the trampoline event. MacLennan won gold at the 2018 world championships and, despite suffering a broken ankle in 2019, she took bronze at the 2019 world championships in Tokyo just seven months after the injury.
But MacLennan isn’t the only member of the women’s gymnastics team with a shot at medaling at these Games: 25-year-old Ellie Black leads Canada’s artistic gymnastics team, an event only one Canadian has ever medaled in. Black placed fifth in Rio 2016, with her powerful and aggressive style giving her a unique edge in the competition, but it will not be easy to outdo American superstar Simone Biles. The Canadians also have Shallon Olsen, Ava Stewart, and Brooklyn Moores competing in the artistic event, who will each showcase their skills across four different apparatus: vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor.
Contenders
Athletics Canada
Athletics Canada is bringing 57 athletes to the Games in Japan, 31 of whom have Olympic experience.
Led by sprinter Andre De Grasse, decathlon athlete Damian Warner, and middle-distance runner Melissa Bishop-Nriagu, Canada has a team that is not only versatile in the number of events that they will be competitive in, but also more resilient and mentally-focused than ever.
“The catchphrase for me is ‘resilience, mental resilience,’” says Athletics Canada’s high performance director Simon Nathan. “The Canadians have had it as tough as any other country in the world in terms of restriction on travel, restriction on competitions, the just constant changes and uncertainty they’ve had to deal with [due to COVID]. So I’m sure this will be an incredibly resilient team in Tokyo.”
The team coming to Tokyo is not just happy to be there: they are coming for medals, and hopefully more than the six Athletics Canada won in Rio. And there is a lot to be excited about outside of the big names, including athletes such as Aaron Brown (200 metres and 4x100-metre relay), Mohammed Ahmed (5,000 metres and 10,000 metres), Justyn Knight (5,000 metres), sisters Gabriela DeBues-Stafford and Lucia Stafford (1,500 metres), and many more with a chance to raise some eyebrows in Tokyo.
Women’s Soccer
The Canadian women’s soccer team fell six spots down the FIFA world rankings after a 10-game winless drought against top-10 nations—a stretch where they went 0-8-2 and were outscored 20-3— nding up at No. 8 ahead of the Games. But don’t be fooled: this Canadian squad has the experience and talent necessary to medal in Tokyo, playing much better as of late with friendly wins against Wales and England.
Captained by 38-year-old striker Christine Sinclair—who enters her fourth and possibly final Olympics as the all-time leader for international goals scored for men or women with 186—the Canadians will try to reach the podium for the third consecutive Games. And while Sinclair is the mainstay, the Canadian program has undergone a lot of turnover as of late, with fresh faces on both the pitch and the sidelines.
Coach Bev Priestman came in to replace longtime head coach John Herdman last October after serving as an assistant on Herdman’s staff. The change has given the players a fresh start, as Priestman made it clear that every position is up for grabs and is not afraid to play less experienced players or experiment with her lineups. Plus, the newfound commitment of playing out of the back and putting pressure on opponents with their speed up front has given the Canadians a new and exciting look.
In goal, Kailen Sheridan is the person to watch. After being named the top goalkeeper in the National Women’s Soccer League’s Challenge Cup last summer and being nominated for the 2021 ESPY award for the best NWSL player, an ill-timed injury while in goal for Team Canada against the top-ranked Americans in the SheBelieves Cup earlier this year put her Olympic dreams into question. Fortunately, Sheridan battled back from surgery to her leg, earning a spot on Team Canada with a chance to not only start in goal but, according to Gotham FC head coach Freya Coombe: “I think she’s going to be the best in the world [and] I think she’s going to have that legacy in Canada for a long time.”
Women’s Softball
Softball and baseball have not been Olympic sports since Beijing 2008, when the Canadian women’s softball team finished fourth. Now, because of their significance in Japan, they will be back in the Games for one year and gone the next. But with the men’s baseball team failing to qualify, Canada’s medal hopes rest on the shoulders of women’s softball.
“Being a part of this program for 12 years and having helped create the culture that we have, it’s been a long road to get to this point and an exciting road,” says veteran Joey Lye. “Just a few years ago, when they announced the sport would be back in the Olympics, it kind of rejuvenated the program, and the culture around softball in general.”
Ranked No. 3 in the world behind only the USA and host-nation Japan, the Canadian women have won three bronze medals—including back-to-back bronze in 2016 and 2018—over the last five world championships. They qualified for the Games after finishing in the top two (along with Mexico, who is coincidentally their first opponent at the Games on July 21) at a September 2019 Americas qualifier event in Surrey, British Columbia, and are bringing four players with Olympic experience to Japan.
Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes
The No. 1 ranked women’s beach volleyball tandem in the world will be representing Canada at the Tokyo Olympics.
Since joining forces in 2017, Pavan and Paredes have been a dominant force, becoming the first ever Canadian world champions in women’s volleyball in 2019, with 11 total podium finishes on the FIVB World Tour together.
The 6-foot-5 lefty Pavan and the 5-foot-9 Humana Paredes are a relatively new duo, forming after Rio 2016 Pavan and her partner of four years, Heather Bansley, failed to reign victorious. Now, with Pavan the net presence and Paredes in the back covering ground and setting up Pavan for smashes, they represent one of Canada’s best hopes at winning Olympic gold.